The Way Social Media Changed Our Culture

Friend requests, status updates, and gender reveals? Social media platforms are making it easier than ever to keep your friends, family, and basically the entire internet updated about your life. It started with younger people on MySpace and Facebook, and now over 78% of Americans have a social network profile (Kerpen, 2016). It’s hard to ignore the changes social networking has caused in our culture and the way we present ourselves to others. Keeping up with the Jones’s is easier than ever thanks to sites like Facebook and Instagram, giving people a real-time play by play of their ‘friends’ vacations, careers, and entire lives.

https://dazeinfo.com/2015/10/13/generation-z-80-use-social-media-daily-65-share-content-infographic/


Interestingly enough, social media has had quite an effect on not only our culture but our perception of ethics. Humans form social norms via direct or vicarious reinforcement and behaviors that gain collective approval ultimately become norms (Bagdasarov, Maring, Chaunan, & Connelly, 2017). Platforms like Facebook or Twitter create this type reinforcement via likes, shares, or comments on a post or tweet. In essence, the formation of social norms in this way has developed the influencer marketing culture on apps like Instagram. When a user can garner a sizeable audience, advertisers reach out and offer monetary compensation for that person to ‘sell’ a product by posting about it on their Instagram feed or story. When that post gets a large amount of likes, consumers believe the product is valuable and will most likely purchase it.



Bagdasarov, Z., Martin, A., Chauhan, R., & Connelly, S. (2017). Aristotle, Kant, and …Facebook? A Look at the Implications of Social Media on Ethics. Ethics & Behavior, 27(7), 547–561. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1080/10508422.2016.1269648


Kerpen, C. (2016, April 21). How Has Social Media Changed Us? Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carriekerpen/2016/04/21/how-has-social-media-changed-us/#2a2a2b5c5dfc

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